Is Rohlík Getting More Expensive?

Customers at grocery stores and chain supermarkets are used to paying around two crowns for an ordinary roll (rohlík) but the chairman of the Association of Bakers and Pastry Chefs Jaromír Dřízal has suggested that could change. The main two reasons are the results of a poor harvest this year (13 percent lower than 2016) and the rising cost of butter.

Also factored into a rise in costs is a lack now of qualified personnel and changes in existing bakeries as they are passed from one generation to the next.

“Some 1,000 more employees would be needed in the sector”, Dřízal added emphasizing that an existing fast-track program to bring in foreign labor, such as from Ukraine, needs to be speeded up.

Tradition has it that these delicious rolls were first produced in 1683 by a Viennese baker, but for obvious reasons, the real history of these little breads is difficult to trace. The Germans call them Hörnchen, Poles call them Rogal, Austrians call them Kipferl, Romanians call them Cornuleţ, Slovenians call them Rožok and they are very popular in all of Eastern Europe.